Would you believe that this dating game could get any more revolting? More thoughts on this embarrassing presidential election.
DANGER--CAUTION--BEWARE.
What follows here is yet another commentary on this year's presidential election, Dear Reader. Believe me, I am more than bored with this subject matter, but the candidates keep shocking me into a catatonic state.
Honestly, we must be the laughing stock of the world.
I shudder to think how the global community regards our lack of any political process. Honor is out the window, and the election of 2024 has devolved into a cult of personality. On the one side you've got a mainstream politician, spouting platitudes (Harris), while on the other you've got a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler.
I am compelled to address comments made by the dictator wannabe, Mr. Asshole (i.e. Trump):
"Immigrants are no longer welcome in Donald Trump’s America. Instead, the Republican presidential nominee posited that under his potential second administration, he would round up and mass-deport noncitizens based on their “serial numbers.” https://newrepublic.com/post/186239/donald-trump-full-holocaust-immigration
Uh, WTF?????
"Trump moves one step further toward the Third Reich. In a Sunday interview on Full Measure, he went full Nazi: Trump said that he would work with local authorities to round up immigrants by "serial numbers."
That’s entirely consistent with his first wife, Ivana, claiming in her memoir that Donald kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches on a side table next to their bed. (She also charged Trump with raping her — which she later recanted — but that’s another story.)
In the interview, Trump added:
"But we're getting the criminals out, and we're going to do that fast, and we know who they are, and the local police know their names, and they know their serial numbers," he insisted. "They know everything about them."
Don't believe me? Think I'm taking from "fake news"? Nope.
It's not a good sign when reality mimics satire, and this story is especially depressing, as it displays a total lack of consideration for a painful past.
It's also not a good sign when an asshole like Trump talks about aspects of the Holocaust being 'necessary'? Serial numbers for Immigrants? Vomit.
At heart, I think that I'm an optimist--never quite letting myself believe that the unthinkable could happen. That there could ever be an American version of Hitler. And yet, here we all are, confronted by the ever increasing probability of an American Nazi state. So much for my belief in the integrity of our republic.
Yes, perhaps I am embarrassingly naive, but I have always fantasized that the inherent ideals of the two Continental Congresses precluded the existence of a dictatorship.
So once again, I take up my keyboard to lament the upcoming election. Now, Dear Reader, having read the above quotations by the evil used car salesman, have you and I entered a parallel universe akin to the classic Star Trek episode " Mirror, mirror"?
I think Nimoy looked fabulous with a goatee.
I have already commented on various dictators like Stalin and Hitler, but it seems as though a lot of people have forgotten about the tragedies and hideous crimes of World War Two. Over twenty million dead, two atom bombs dropped, and Europe nearly destroyed. Wasn't that war enough? Didn't posterity learn anything?
During the Roman Republic, there were occasional crises. In such times, one man was appointed 'dictator' for one year to establish order. After that time elapsed, said gentleman was obligated to hand back authority to the Senate. It was in the modern world that this word spawned monsters, who tried (and sometimes succeeded) in establishing hereditary dictatorships, or perpetual dictatorial regimes. Perhaps I'm being silly Dear Reader, in hoping that this form of 'leadership' (vomit) would naturally disappear from view, but alas the cult of personality has always been with us, in one form or another.
So, should we just give ourselves up to the perceived inevitability of a narcissist running our country?
On the one side, a paranoid narcissist, on the other you have (we have to be realistic) an unknown and untried Vice President. Don't you agree, Dear Reader, that the American president has considerable power? If so, then you have to do more than vote for the lesser of two evils (and what a sad thing it is to allow your disappointment to motivate your decision). You have to participate. You have to vote. If you don't (as my dad said on innumerable occasions) vote you get the government you deserve.
Put succinctly, apathy kills.
And the used car salesman is going to exploit that particular problem.
So, how do you like ole Donnie the dickhead as Laura Croft?
Hannah Arendt, who wrote an account of the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem, characterized Nazism as "the banality of evil." What exactly does that mean? BANALITY: "the quality of being boring, ordinary, and not original." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/banality At least according to the Cambridge University dictionary. But, do I agree with Arendt's use of that term? Yes and no. Hitler's inner circle were extraordinarily ordinary men, not gifted with either intellect or extensive education (excepting perhaps Albert Speer). And yet, these men were truly gifted in their collective hatred and paranoia ...of just about everything and everyone. But, there were special orcs, even within the circle of Hitler's closest minions. This is the story of one of the worst: Hitler’s favorite orc. All right. You caught me. That orc is actually from the World of Warcraft. OK. Let me introduce you to this f...
What images come to your mind, when you dream of the American West, Dear Reader? Something like this? I know that this is one of the more recognized fantasies about the western experience. Hopefully by now, we all know that this depiction is COMPLETE bulls*&t. THERE WERE ALREADY PEOPLE THERE, FOLKS. When I think of the American western experience, I always have these images in my head: For my druthers, I prefer pictures like the above. Images that compel impressions of space and wild beauty. Buffalo, coupled (of course) with that endless sky. Whenever I think about the American West, I think poetically. I think tectonically. It's impossible to gage this landscape against the span of a single human life. But, that is essentially what we have to do here, isn't it Dear Reader? We must create condensed sketches of larger events, even if those happenings are tragic in nature. Which brings us to Sand Creek. The events surrounding the M...
Be Like the Cactus Let not harsh tongues, that wag in vain, Discourage you. In spite of pain, Be like the cactus, which through rain, And storm, and thunder, can remain. Kimii Nagata https://japaneseinternmentmemories.wordpress.com/category/japanese-internement-poetry/ Manzanar, yesterday and today. When I was a kid, back in the Neo-lithic era, one of the books we had to read was entitled Farewell to Manzanar. I don't remember it really, now that I'm in my dotage, but I do remember being shocked that the internment of Japanese Americans occurred during the second world war. Here's a link to the book online: https://www.rgandara.com/uploads/1/2/3/7/123702754/james_d._houstonjames_a._houstonjeanne_wakatsuki_houston_-_farewell_to_manzanar__2013_houghton_mifflin_harcourt_trade_and_reference_houghton_mifflin_harcourt_hmh_books_for_young_readers___1_.pdf We also used to drive past what remained of the camp on our way to Mammoth Mountain--a ski resort....
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